


Neféloma

by pureleaf



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Angst, Blind Character, Body Worship, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Dark, Eventual Smut, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mythology References, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Slow Burn, Touch-Starved, medusa has serpent pals, the gods are hoes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:01:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22143763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pureleaf/pseuds/pureleaf
Summary: Human-size stones stared back at her, and she was the one to blame for the horror plastered on their faces for all eternity. Men, women, children, innocent beings and animals. These people were real, their forms perfect and marbled. Their faces captured true fear, too detailed and flawless. Medusa was the most magnificent sculptor in the world, the most sadistic artistry followed her everywhere.Could a blind mortal change her fate?
Relationships: Athena & Medusa (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Medusa/Original Character(s)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 33





	1. Prologue: Genesis

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to the amazing ChromeHoplite and your genius beta brain *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> find me on tumblr: pureleafpoet

Humankind forgets. They often get the story wrong. Eons of legends and those who remain flesh have seen fate change.

Being exiled by a Goddess for all of eternity for a crime that was committed _against_ the banished seemed quite impious. It appeared that even the Gods’ irises adjust to light that shines brighter than them. Medusa now looked at herself as a dark sky, searching for a star to swallow whole. Before her piety was morphed into a deadly gaze, Medusa was the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, residing on an island at the edge of the world. She wore mortal skin, so daringly mortal, and dreamt about self-destructing angels. Her laughter could have filled the night sky, her fingertips like wrinkled roses from being one with the water for too long. Or was it ever long enough? With silk hair like buttermilk and a body like blasphemy, the one thing no one could ever recall was the color of her eyes. 

Now when she walked across sand, she would never look back at the steps left by her feet. The ocean was forbidden from kissing her toes. Her hands searched out the shells that look like teeth because she had a tongue like absinthe. When a Goddess is angered, she will snap turtle doves at the neck and toss them into arms while they leak and dirty one with darkness. The Gods will slather the guilty in clay until they harden for them to crack open and fill with rage. After this, Medusa learned that doves do cry when they are strangled; they actually shed tears. 

When Athena broke her bones, the pain was not beautiful, but she was, and she would let her do far worse. From then on, Medusa would never have the comfort of looking at another human face without destroying it. How could they have exiled the ocean? What void could possibly hold her now?

One by the name of Sarpedon; a deeply forested island in the Western Ocean near Hesperides. Fate was a cruel mistress to the once stunning human, now immortal and eternally damned. She often remained hidden in crystal lit caverns, away from the poor, unfortunate creatures that could catch her eye. The serpent beauty never used to be wicked, but a thousand years of isolation and turning unlucky travelers to stone will change a woman. 

Human-size stones stared back at her, and she was the one to blame for the horror plastered on their faces for all eternity. Men, women, children, innocent beings and animals. These people were real, their forms perfect and marbled. Their faces captured true fear, too detailed and flawless. Medusa was the most magnificent sculptor in the world, the most sadistic artistry followed her everywhere. 

She tiptoed around overgrown roots bursting through the stone dwelling atop her flowering hill. Her toes clenched as she stepped into the violet aconites, poisonous to mortals but soft against her calloused feet. With every step forward, she passed molds of crumbling men, spears of stone in their clenched fists, mouths agape, screaming; she could still hear them. 

They were foolish to come here, they knew how it would end, how it always ended. Medusa sighed, her ebony hair flowing down to her elbows. Her serpents, Volos, Inani, Shesha, and Aurelio whispered to her, coiling around her forearms, shoulders, and neck. They often hid in her coarse locks, kept out of sunlight’s blazing reach, but enjoyed slithering out when the moon was high or when the sky was dense with veils of clouds. 

She made her way up the stoned sanctuary, littered with ruptured pillars and shattered bodies. There were cliffs near, and forests made of mist. And through the gentle, unresisting meadows, one pale path unrolled like a strip of cotton. In greedy, unchewed bites her walk devoured the path with her hands hanging at her sides; tight and heavy out of the failing folds. No longer conscious of the delicate hisses growing into her left and right arms, like slips of roses grafted onto an olive tree. Her senses felt as though they were split in two: her sight racing ahead of her like a dog, halting, returning, then rushing off again. She felt like the root sprouting through what was unalive, and she had wished they were thorned. Instead, she was cursed with ivy chains; scepter disguised as sword. 

She sat on the cathedra made of gravel, leg crossed over the other with her elbow resting to her right, fist indenting her cheek. Aurelio wrapped around her throat gently, speaking in tongues in her left ear. The saffron scaled serpent tickled her ear with his tongue relentlessly until Medusa spoke. 

“I am alright. Just in thought,” she huffed. Inani peered up from her wrist, tilting her blue head sideways with her tongue out. Medusa rolled her eyes and tapped her back down. The other two rubbed their bellies across her skin, minding their own. “Enough of that. I am just,” she paused, feeling frustrated with herself, “feeling dull.” 

Scattered all around her at the top of her sanctum to the soil surrounding it were gold, precious jewels and treasure left by the uninvited guests. Wealth beyond what a simple human could ever imagine spread like a river of riches, decorating the ground with gilt, rubies, and silver. She had no use for these material items, so they just laid there waiting for the earth to swallow them up. Surrounding her was grey, lifeless humans; there was no aortic blood, no hearts torn from their pericardium, no rotting, decaying flesh filled with maggots. There was only grey, so much of it she could have forgotten color. 

Volos, beautiful and pure-white, yawned big as Medusa settled. She ran her fingers across his belly and stared out toward the sea expanded around them. Her eyes squinted to look beyond the horizon, the sun slowly setting against her bronze skin. Shesha, black as midnight, balled into her clothed lap. She was dressed in linen peplos, torn to drape just above the knee. Her old self would have shuddered at the length. It was a requirement that linen cover the body from the shoulders down to the ankles. Medusa laughed into her hand, kicking her bare leg out in front of her. She kept her hold on the ocean, slowly blinking her eyelids closed as the fiery sun sank under the sea. Her thoughts wandered to what was below the water, and how she once prayed for the absolute destruction of that damned ocean. She kept her eyes closed.

“Ironic, is it not?” she spoke aloud. “They strived for my dismay, cursed me immortal and banished me, but all I received was peace. Absolute boredom, but stillness.” Her words turned to whispers as the sound of waves lulled her to sleep. With eyes closed shut, she felt forever frozen in time. 

*** 

Waves turned to wails inside Medusa’s head. 

_sa... you… no choice… pl-_

_“_ You do have choice! You do!” Medusa screamed.

The air was thick, the glittering temple was, for the first time in existence, dark and murky like marsh water. Every sound was echoed and lost, and Medusa screamed. She screamed and screamed until her throat bled. 

“You arrogant viper! How could you?” 

_Med... not mine… only way…_

“I swear to you, I will never forgive you, never,” _never, never, never._

_Behold, you will endure, you will be protected, you will never be touched._

_Rebirth, repel, you are._

“I am.”


	2. Medusa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Was she the serpent-headed girl? Or her endless reflection? Or the winged mare burst forth from her blood? Was she a child of slaughter? Wreathed from the mouth of a wound?

_Medusa, with her heart of writhing snakes_  
_And with her bleeding lungs of shattered stone_  
_For a man, a god, a monster who takes_  
_And so in her temple, you were known_

“I am so delighted by you.” 

Athena brushed Medusa’s raven hair from her shoulders, pulling the curled strands apart with gentle fingers. She tucked stray hairs behind her ear, chuckling softly when Medusa shook at the contact. 

“Women pray for a gorgeous coiffure like yours, you know?” she whispered as she weaved her strands in a loose braid. Medusa smiled softly at the ground, hiding her discernible blush from the goddess. She knew, though. She always knew. 

“Why would any woman waste a prayer on something so paltry?” Medusa sighed when her nails scratched her scalp, resting her back ever so slightly against the deity’s chest. She continued wrapping the tresses under and over, like a silk, black rope. Her hair was a dark river, and Athena’s hand dove into the tumble of it, curls defying the laws of gravity as she twisted and tugged. With an attempt to bring each follicle to unity, the golden matron was a beacon summoning them all together. 

“Perhaps they desire someone else to touch it,” Athena breathed, tying the end with twine. “Notably a God, or _Goddess._ ” Medusa’s face burned as the wisdom goddess murmured into her hair. She folded her hands to hide her nails digging into her palms, worship practically falling from her lips.

“I must bare a plentiful blessing, then.” 

_Medusa, my Medusa. Awaken._

***

Medusa was startled awake with the dawn of a storm approaching the island, thunder rolling and lightning flashing miles out at sea. Her nightmares felt like cataclysms inside her skull, a lucid forget-me-not crusade. With her mind vigorous for ages, any dream became rotten; fruit left to fester beneath a tempestuous sky. She had felt like an ensnared animal waiting for the hunter to cease her suffering, but instead was greeted by grief. A savage and raw, biting at the skin untenderly until it tore. Her very limbs could have atrophied if it weren’t for nature refusing her; turning into a cypress tree was not happening anytime soon. 

_I think I dreamt you._

The ground rumbled and quaked where she sat, her serpents making a fuss over the intrusion. A streak of blazing silver split open the sky as the wind held its breath. The island was drained of all color but tinted viridescence in faltering light. She knew she needed to leave before the downpour began and before the raging deluge met sand. Maybe she could rest in her cavern while waiting out the gale. She wondered what Zeus was irate about this time. 

There was no domain that was beyond his reach. He was all metal wire and capriciousness, for the world belonged to him. He traveled through electric currents, shedding skin and unwanted divinity. Medusa groaned but set to hide herself away until he burnt himself out. 

She was unsure of how long the turmoil would last, but she knew one thing for sure; she was starving. Though immortal, her stomach still required the sustenance of food for strength. Otherwise, she’d lay to wither with her poor serpents who needed their mouths fed. Before the rise of the onslaught, she would gather fruit to last the passing of nights; the duration of the squall was untold. She wouldn’t waste her energy hunting, for capturing what creatures were left on the island was difficult with the whole _turning all flesh to stone_ malediction. Medusa had learned to hunt swiftly, without staring for too long, because the taste of stone was unpleasant, and the firmness of rock would shatter her teeth. Everlasting or not, Medusa still craved tart berries and piquant meat. 

Her feet increased pace through the gritty sand around the crescent of the island to make her way up the mountain side where she could stow herself away in the comfort of her cavern. She could collect a sackful of apples, cherries, and plums for the days ahead before staying dormant. With racing speed, she trekked to the base of the mountainside thick with trees. Inside, she grabbed what she needed before heading upward. The path to the entrance had no sympathy for terrain. It grew wide where the ground was soft and narrow where it was all rock. Thick boughs branched from all sides, competing for the sunlight that was drowned by gloom. With each advancing step, the breeze bit at her face, tousled her hair, and displeased the ophidians. She could not wait to be cocooned in the body of the earth of impenetrable blackness, so she strode on.

***

Inside the hollow were walls of endless onyx so deep that the silence enveloping her was eerie. It was always the quiet before the eruption; the gentle hum of oncoming rain and the static rushing through her nerves from lightning. She had made a bed of marble and moss, a pillow of decaying flowers and vines. The _drip drip drip_ of water was heard before the pour began. She thought of building a fire for the night, the dim crystals being the only protruding light. 

The air grew heavy as humidity settled in and pressed its weight on the mountain. The boom of thunder shook the cavern, echoed throughout the space, and rang in her ears. It roared and raged, and Medusa cowered against the rock with every gregarious rumble. All she could hear were hissing shrieks and the howls of a furious, operated storm. 

The gusts of wind forced the rain in to pool at her feet. She huffed through flared nostrils, her serpents hissing from within her hair. Inani peeked her head outside just to retreat when the dark cave lit with a flash. The poor cold-bloods shivered and coiled together while Medusa kicked at the puddle. She wrapped a shawl tightly around her shoulders to keep warm, peering into the infuriating slosh. Her reflection rippled after dipping her toe in, coruscating eyes blinking in suspicion. 

She never stared at her reflection for too long, quick glances here and there. It was not as if her own gaze could turn herself into stone; she had tried and tried. The curse would not work in that way: on herself or through reflections, only on creatures and flesh with simple locked eyes. Her olive skin appeared marbled with charcoal veins, cracked lips, and sharp talons outgrown from her fingers. She grimaced at the sight of herself, looking the part of a monster hiding away in a deep, dark cave. The wind blew the shawl from her shoulders and purled the water. Fast as her transformation came, it vanished again, and she seemed to take comfort in the repugnance of her features. A face sculpted from marble became a mask hewn from rough stone, and her claws clacked against granite skin as if comforting herself of its presence. Was she the serpent-headed girl? Or her endless reflection? Or the winged mare burst forth from her blood? Was she a child of slaughter? Wreathed from the mouth of a wound?

Medusa had long ago turned her pain into anger to become strong. The voices in her soul were tinged with vengeance, chanting _you do not deserve this, but you will take it and make it yours. Make them regret._ She listened, she became what created her. Men whispered _predator._ Medusa screamed _retribution. They fear you,_ they whispered. _Show them why they should. Show them the monster they believe you are._

With vipers her only friends, Medusa sat otherwise alone in the darkness and wondered. At the edge of the cave’s entrance, betrayal burned in her chest. Could she love her snakes? Could she love her own skin? There were multiples inside of her, but she shrunk at the thought of bearing even one. 

***

The gods were selfish. They had no means to be, but when existence spans millennia, it was hard to think of how one decision would affect a life. An ant had no quarrel with a boot. 

Long ago, her palm was forced onto sand and her life was cast away; her heart, her mind, her tongue, her soul, her being became a mouthpiece of absent Gods that chewed the inside of her cheek until it bled. She tasted like copper and iron and grasped between spindles of what used to be love and luminous stars, but now there was nothing left. 

It wasn’t like Medusa was special; she was a girl, all human and soft and malleable. That couldn’t have been all. She had grace. She had teeth. She wanted power. 

Ichor was an ache, a hunger, and a thirst never quenched. The whole universe with its spiraling cosmos could never satisfy it. That craved mortality, supple fingers, gentle touches, a beating heart. 

She first observed _her_ by the ocean’s shore and her chest felt as if it were caving in. Was it jealousy? Of the ocean; of the waves? Of the way saline water brought a smile to her lips. 

_You watch me._

As if she were not surprised. How could she have noticed her with her eyes studying the sea? She considered losing control, only for a moment. Releasing her godly wrath that was being taunted. 

_You forget what rests in my blood._

But it was Athena who forgot. It was she who gifted her with corruption. 

_He bloodied my temple by desecrating yours. Medusa, my Medusa. No one shall moan your name. They shall scream it in fear, and I shall sing it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos & comments will make my day! <3


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